Exhibition

Under the Last Sky

exhibition statement

Under the Last Sky

"Where should we go after the last frontiers? Where should the birds fly after the last sky?"

– Mahmoud Darwish

Wafer (electronics)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

In electronics, a wafer (also called a slice or substrate[1]) is a thin slice of semiconductor material, such as a silicon crystal, used in the fabrication of integrated circuits and other microdevices. The wafer serves as the substrate for microelectronic devices built in and over the wafer and undergoes many microfabrication process steps such as doping or ion implantation, etching, deposition of various materials, and photolithographic patterning. Finally the individual microcircuits are separated (dicing) and packaged.

CMOS

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

Complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) /'siːmɒs/ is a technology for constructing integrated circuits. CMOS technology is used in microprocessors, microcontrollers, static RAM, and other digital logiccircuits. CMOS technology is also used for several analog circuits such as image sensors (CMOS sensor), data converters, and highly integrated transceivers for many types of communication. Frank Wanlass patented CMOS in 1963 (US patent 3,356,858).

Active pixel sensor

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

(Redirected from CMOS sensor)

An active-pixel sensor (APS) is an image sensor consisting of an integrated circuit containing an array of pixel sensors, each pixel containing a photodetector and an active amplifier. There are many types of active pixel sensors including the CMOS APS used most commonly in cell phone cameras, web cameras and in some DSLRs. Such an image sensor is produced by a CMOS process (and is hence also known as a CMOS sensor), and has emerged as an alternative to charge-coupled device (CCD) image sensors.

artists statement

The title of Public Studio's new exhibition, Under the Last Sky, is a phrase borrowed from the late poet Mahmoud Darwish: "Where should we go after the last frontiers? Where should the birds fly after the last sky?" In 1985, Edward Said produced a book together with photographer Jean Mohr called After the Last Sky, a photo book that emanated from an absence of images; a people who were never seen nor heard. Today, we have a different problem—the ubiquity of images—but still the crisis of representation persists. Currently, millions of images are being recorded from mechanized apparatuses that document our lives without our awareness or permission. While surveillance has been with us for some time, the consequences are now greater: Targeted killing, collateral damage, and the death of privacy. This catastrophic sequence of events begins with an image.

Public Studio, in their ongoing investigation of war in the everyday, use silicone wafers as a starting point to engage in conversations about surveillance, drones, and image making. Under the Last Sky considers the current state of photography and its relationship to us. Further, the radical notion that photography is no longer produced by people but rather is a function of digitized mechanisms caching and recirculating millions of images is interrogated by Flanders & Sawatzky.

The silicon wafers are etched on one side with images of skies where drone attacks occurred over the past year. The obverse hosts electronic circuitry produced through photolithographic processes that are both highly technologically advanced and simultaneously reliant on some of the oldest photographic practices known. The artists thus scrutinize the photographic medium by presenting a history lesson of photographic practices—from daguerreotypes to digital images in this meditation on the relationship between surveillance and photography.

about the artists

ELLE FLANDERS is an award-winning filmmaker and artist based in Toronto. She was raised in Montreal and Jerusalem and holds both an MA in Critical Theory and an MFA from Rutgers University. Her work has been exhibited at museums and festivals internationally, including the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), TIFF, and the Berlin International Film Festival. Together with Tamira Sawatzky, she founded Public Studio, with recent works including: Kino Pravda 3G, What Isn't There, and Road Movie, each of which can be accessed at www.publicstudio.ca. She directed the award-winning feature documentary Zero Degrees of Separation, which has screened worldwide and has been broadcast globally. Flanders is a PhD candidate in the Visual Arts Studio Program at York University, where she also teaches.

TAMIRA SAWATZKY is an award-winning architect and artist working in Toronto. In addition to an ongoing architectural practice, her recent artwork includes: Kino Pravda 3G, What Isn't There, and Road Movie. Her work has been exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art, the Art Gallery at York University (AGYU) and Flux Factory in New York.